


Charley Horse Heart

by Querulousgawks



Series: Tumblr Prompts [12]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Class Issues, Gen, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7224448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charley horse, n. A colloquial term for the sudden, painful, and involuntary contraction of a muscle. Relieved by stretching in the opposite direction of the spasm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charley Horse Heart

Dex has shrugged off or re-thought a lot of his kneejerk responses since coming to Samwell. But there's one that's not going anywhere anytime soon, and that's the mix of resentment and fear that hits him at the idea of asking the world for too much. He knows it's bullshit, quantitatively and qualitatively: he's familiar with the numbers on wage stagnation relative to the cost of living, and he heard the crabs-in-a-bucket metaphor four times before orientation was even over. He gets that it's a class thing, okay? None of that can suppress his panicked response, for instance, to protestors on campus calling for $15 an hour. _Stop it, you're overreaching, increments,_ he wants to say, and balls his fists to keep from pulling someone's arm down. _You're going to get us all in trouble._

He knows it's illogical and he feels it anyway, which is the _worst_ combination, in his opinion. Maybe, like, humanities majors - poets, to pick an example at random - can get away with that shit. They hold opposites in tension, or whatever, but if Dex spots a flaw it itches at him until he can fix it, whether it's in his personal reasoning or in the Haus wiring. (Don't even get him started.) 

He has at least fixed his outward reaction. He'd never actually yell at the protesters, and it's not like his hands tensing into fists is anything new to the hockey team. But logic can't win out over that first, inward jolt. His _dad_ doesn't make $15 an hour, averaged across the season, even getting paid by the pound and filleting for the tourist market with their markup for total ignorance. And his dad had the fastest hands in town, before arthritis fucked him over. _Quiet down before we all get fucked over:_ he can close his lips over it, but it's there.

His one consolation is that he's not a hypocrite about it, even in that first instinctive criticism that lives only in his head. He'd slap himself down faster than he would anyone else, sets his own distance for _overreach_ to the smallest radius of them all. 

So when someone does notice his fists, the first time or the fiftieth or maybe both, when someone does curl their long fingers around his to tug them flat? Gives him a sidelong glance and a headshake that used to be just bored and baffled, and is now almost fond?

Dex shrugs it off. Scowls and jerks away. He knows how much guys like him can ask for, and he's already got Samwell. 

He won't fuck everything up by reaching for more. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Anti-inflammatory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7549762) by [Querulousgawks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks)




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